A bit of culture for Easter Saturday as we headed to The Citadel in town for this year’s Salvation Army Easter Concert. It was all part of their fundraising to refurbish the facilities here.
Tonight, for our listening pleasure, we had ‘Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem’, ‘John Rutter’s Gloria’ and Kettering SA’s very own Richard Phillips’ composition: ‘Jesus Victorious’. The local Salvation Army here in Kettering has a great track record with their musical presentations, and last year’s performance of part of Handel’s Messiah here was fantastic! 👏 👏. We weren’t familiar with the majority of the content on offer tonight (well, Ann certainly knew more than me!), but it was all in a good cause, and for many, it was good to be reminded of the significance of Easter.
Supported by a small orchestra (trumpets, violins, violas, cellos, double bass, trombones (including a BASS trombone), tuba, timpani, percussion, keyboard, harp – and a gong, they provided a big sound to accompany the Choristers. All-in-all, this was serious stuff to befit the Easter occasion. Fellow audience members would have been pleased delighted that unlike last year, I didn’t hum my way through it all (mainly down to my unfamiliarity with the ‘tunes’).
It was a full house for this, ‘tonight only’ performance, with close to 140 240 (Thanks, David, for spotting that. I did get A-Level Maths, honest!! 😉) of us in the audience! – including the Kettering Mayor, Cllr Ben James (at what must be one of his final official duties before he steps down after the usual year in the role). Meanwhile, ‘behind’ the orchestra, I’d never seen so many Choristers, aka Kettering Community Choir – I counted close on 70. No wonder Kettering Town seemed deserted! 😉😁.
Strangely though, no-one was taking photographs, and even though I planned to, I followed their lead.
Holding it all together in his role as Conductor was the very talented Richard Phillips, who, as I mentioned earlier, was responsible for the third piece tonight. Richard has been an integral part of the music output here for as long as we’ve been coming to these kinds of events, including over 20 years leading the Kettering Citadel Band.
Completing the musical talents tonight was Mark Norwood – from my old stomping ground of Bromley – a baritone with a voice so deep, dark and thick, you could have probably made gravy from it – the Bisto of Baritones! Superb!!! 👌
6.58pm: At just before 7pm, to enthusiastic applause, the evening officially began. The first piece, Requiem, was in four parts – and sung in Latin! Yikes! Not exactly one you could (thankfully) sing along to! Whatever the Choir was on, can I have some, please? 🥰. They were thoroughly enjoying themselves and giving it any mathematician’s nightmare of 110%! For me? Not so much. The combination of unfamiliarity with the tune and the revisiting of Latin (last ‘enjoyed’ by me at school in around 1970!) made it a difficult listen, but you couldn’t fault the performance itself, being demonstrated here tonight. Extra brownie points for soloist Cheryl Stone, who lit up the room during the final part Pie Jesu – what a voice! Angels beware!!👌👌. By the time Requiem came to the end, some of the singers looked exhausted, but we weren’t surprised, given the amount of energy that had been on show.
A short interlude followed, where the Choir and the Orchestra, together with Richard, all left the stage for presumably some more of the magic potion that had served them so well for their first piece – or maybe even an Easter Egg? Almost certainly, the queue for the ladies’ loos was going to be a long one!
The potion/the chocolate/the loo break had clearly done the trick, and some 20 minutes later, the dream team were back on stage for their second piece – Gloria. Shorter in length, but still on a mission to test my Latin, the performance also included some stunning solo work from Cheryl Stone, Ruth Humphrey and Alison Chapman. I enjoyed Gloria more, in spite of the lashings of Latin.
For many, I’m sure Richard‘s piece – the final part of tonight’s performance – Jesus Victorious – was eagerly awaited – simply because it was all his own musical work using the words of Stephen Pearson (no, not the former Scottish professional footballer, but the Managing Editor of the Salvation Army). And what a collaboration! 😉😮. I don’t think ANYONE saw that coming, and those hoping to ‘rest their eyelids’ during this one were going to be very disappointed. As the title suggests, this was very upbeat with plenty of orchestral surprises. The official Programme described it as ‘raw, turbulent and emotionally charged’ and we wouldn’t argue with that! Sleeping is for wimps anyway!! 😴😴 Best news of all? It was in English. If the Choristers had given ‘110%’ up until now, then by this point, their enthusiasm was off the scale.
8.25pm: Almost 90-minutes later, it was all over. It had been a great evening (even if the unfamiliarity of the music took the shine off it for me, a little). If there are marks for enthusiasm and professionalism, though, tonight was unbeatable. Well done, Salvation Army, Kettering!
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
Quam praeclara vespera! (It’s OK, I looked it up!) 😉
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